In recent years, an ink-jet technology is expected to be applied to a manufacturing apparatus as well as a printer apparatus for forming an image on a paper medium. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses, as an apparatus for manufacturing a liquid crystal display, an organic EL display, a plasma display, an electron-releasing element, an electrophoretic display device, or the like, a manufacturing apparatus equipped with an ink-jet droplet discharge element. In order to improve the accuracy of position with which droplets land on a substrate, Patent Document 1 uses a substratum of the apparatus as a stationary stone platen having a stage provided directly thereon so as to convey substrates in one direction and a carriage mechanism provided directly thereon so as to move an ink-jet head in a direction orthogonal to the direction of movement of the stage.
Usually, a general-purpose ink-jet printer forms an image with use of a single ink-jet head unit having several ink-jet head elements mounted for each color so as to serve as elements for discharging droplets. Each of the ink-jet head elements has a width of ½ to 2 inches, and has nozzle holes arrayed at regular intervals of 150 to 300 nozzles per inch. As for a method for forming an image, an image has been formed on a recording paper sheet by passing the ink-jet head unit more than once in a direction orthogonal to the direction of conveyance of the recording paper sheet while feeding the recording paper sheet by a paper-feeding roller.
Even in cases where such an ink-jet system is applied to a manufacturing apparatus, the manufacturing apparatus is identical in ink-head element to the general-purpose printer. Therefore, it is still the case that the column-wise size of nozzles is at most approximately 1 to 2 inches.
Meanwhile, a process for manufacturing a liquid crystal display, an organic EL display, a plasma display, an electron-releasing element, or an electrophoretic display device tends to make an attempt to bring down costs and shorten takt time by increasing yields with use of a large-area substrate. Manufacture of such devices according to the ink-jet system has required a manufacturing apparatus capable of processing a large-area substrate whose sides extend as long as several meters.
An example of an ink-jet manufacturing apparatus capable of processing a large-area substrate at a high speed is a line-head manufacturing apparatus in which a plurality of ink-jet head elements are arrayed in a line not shorter than the size of a substrate. Under such a line-head system, ink-jet elements each having a width of at most 1 to 2 inches are arrayed in a zigzag pattern so as to reach in length the size of a substrate. Assuming that the size of a substrate is several meters, it is necessary to array at least 100 to 200 heads. Such a line-head manufacturing apparatus can be said to be very effective for a substrate, such as a color filter substrate, which requires droplets to be discharged all over the substrate and which is regular in spot onto which droplets are discharged.
Further, as a part of a method for manufacturing a color filter substrate, an arrangement is known which, in cases where a color filter substrate has portions defective in coloration, discharges color filter material only to the defective portions (Patent Document 2).
Further disclosed is an arrangement, provided with a linear fixed head and a repair head, which detects a non-discharging nozzle from the linear fixed head, moves the repair head to a position corresponding to the non-discharging nozzle, discharges droplets through the repair head instead of the non-discharging nozzle (Patent Document 3).
Further disclosed is an arrangement, provided with a first discharge section, a second discharge section, and a drawing inspection section for detecting a defect in a pattern drawn by the first discharge section, which moves the second discharge section relatively to a position corresponding to the defect and discharges droplets in accordance with information from the drawing inspection section (Patent Document 4).    Patent Document 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 191462/2003 (Tokukai 2003-191462; published on Jul. 8, 2003)    Patent Document 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 66218/2003 (Tokukai 2003-66218; published on Mar. 5, 2003)    Patent Document 3: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 185978/2005 (Tokukai 2005-185978; published on Jul. 14, 2005)    Patent Document 4: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 337707/2004 (Tokukai 2004-337707; published on Dec. 2, 2004)